Alt-week 5.4.13: Atacama's mystery skeleton, move to Mars, and lights out for Herschel

Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days.

Well, here we are. It's happening. We're officially talking about setting up a human colony on Mars. Not only is this very real, it's something you can be part of. You don't have to leave the planet to get your extra-terrestrial fix though, as our two other stories demonstrate. This is alt-week.